Arun's blog: Visakhapatnam - Trip to remember

We visited Vizag or Visakhapatnam back in 2007. The place being far away from Bangalore, it was a bit difficult to plan for the trip within a very short time. Anyway, we planned the trip during the X-mas holidays. We took Prasanti Express to reach there from Bangalore. Little bit of tension crippled into as we set to catch the train. It was all my fault. That time we shifted our house further away from the railway station. But I kept that out of my mind and started from home just 1:30 hrs before the train's scheduled departure. Soon, i realized from the cab-driver that it might take more than that time to reach the station. Understanding my goof-up, the cab-driver drove the vehicle almost like a crazy F1 driver and reached the station 5 mins before the departure. The train journey was pleasant and we reached Vizag next afternoon.

Submarine museum

We wanted to stay near the beach, so we started our search for the hotel near Ramkrishna (RK) beach. After a few tries, we found a small guest house for our stay. We walked down to the beach in late afternoon. Cool breeze and the sea waves refreshed the mind. As the evening grasped in, we headed to see the submarine museum 'Smritika'. It is nothing but a real submarine 'INS Kusura'. Once you enter into it, the guide demonstrates important machinery inside it. It was exciting to be inside a real submarine, but it seemed to be a very old one. Rest of the evening we spent on the beach.

Botanical garden @ Araku

Shiva Parvathi statue @ Araku

Next day, we hired a cab and went for Araku. The roads were wonderful and we reached there in less than 2 hours. The visit to the botanical garden disappointed us with nothing interesting to see except a Shiva Parvati statue. After lunch, we started our journey back and reached to see the Borra Caves. The frustration of Araku disappeared instantly as we entered into the naturally formed wonder. The tourism department has made it more accessible for tourists by providing stairs and with required lights to see the beautiful stalactite and stalagmite formations inside the cave. Next one and half hour passed by roaming inside one of the largest caves in India. It was an amazing experience, can not be described through words or photos. It was quite thrilling when the power went off for half a minute and the darkness followed. It was hard to locate someone very close to you. We reached the guest house in the evening and rest of the evening was spent listening to the sound of the sea waves and feeling the cool sea breeze.

Information board outside Borra caves

Entrance of Borra caves

Beautiful stalactite formation inside Borra caves

Stalactite formation inside Borra caves

Next morning, after breakfast, we headed for the Rishikonda beach in an auto-rickshaw. The road was scenic with sea on one side and hillock on the other. The beach is very nice (much better than Ramkrishna beach). After spending some time there, we came back towards RK beach and had lunch. Then we went to VUDA park nearby. The park is big and beautiful and it was a perfect place to take some rest after a good lunch. As the afternoon heat mellowed down, we headed for the Kailashgiri. You can reach the top of the hillock by road. The other option is to use the ropeway cable car. We chose the later one. The view of the RK beach from the cable car was amazing. The top of Kailashgiri is a kind of picnic spot with big statues of Shiva and Parvathi. There is also a small train which takes you around the hillock. There was nothing much to do in the evening. So, we went to see some colorful underwater animals in the Matysadarshini aquarium.